Sunwarper - Music for Imagined Landscapes

 

Released: January 17

Music for Imagined Landscapes is the culmination of a project that lasted just over a year with one song being made every month. With this long time frame, Sunwarper took every opportunity to reach far and wide for inspiration and this effort can be heard throughout its extensive runtime. Touching down on each of these Landscapes takes the listener into a new realm that exemplifies the best of many different genres without being beholden to their idiosyncratic conventions. Better yet, to accompany these lush soundscapes, there is a book that comes with the album filled with vivid descriptions and stunning artwork created by Sunwarper and his label-mate Kh3rtis. 

This vibrant journey starts off in the realm of cinematic ambient sounds with "Vistic" and takes a turn into vaporwave-infused lo-fi hip-hop vibes with the slurry and hypnotic sounds of "Soundtrack for a Rainy Day." I have to say that this track has such an immaculate vibe as the warbling pads drift gently over the laid back rhythm. The trip picks up the pace two tracks later with the house music meets synthwave epic that is "Departure Point" - a track that hearkens back to the day of on-the-rails space shooters of the PSX era in fantastic fashion. This pulsating ride takes an abrupt turn with "Desolation Blues" as we are thrust right back into deep ambient pads and seemingly lonely keys. 

The dynamic of the album shifts from here as we are gently exploring the created environments. And this is where the album really excels in creating the perfect pace for the intertwined story. The excitement and anticipation shown in the beginning is now replaced with a sense of wonder, awe, and pensive unfamiliarity. This theme continues all the way to the fourteenth track, "Solar Sail Expeditions," in which that sense of giddiness returns in the form of sense of satisfaction and expansion of the mind. It's truly a wonderful journey that is capped off with a handful of clever remixes at the end.